Saturday, February 16, 2008

My $.02 on the War (originally written 03/03/03)

I, like a lot of other people I suspect, am really at odds as to whether or not we should go to war. There are many reasons why we should not. The first and foremost among them is that all of this seems to be the end result of the Bush family’s personal dislike for Iraq and Saddam Hussein, and their love of oil. I am fairly certain that this is why many other countries refuse to support our war effort. They probably cannot help but think this is another attempt by an arrogant and boastful nation full of arrogant and boastful people to impose their will on another country, regardless of whether they pose a threat or not. Other countries, most likely believe that we will take anything as a sign of terrorism in order to attack those who don’t fall in line behind our lead, and for the far less complicated reason of revenge for the 9/11 attack. Looking at our president, I can understand where this line of thinking comes from, I actually happen to share it. The rest of the world is finally starting to stand up to America, which is good because we are not always right…especially not with Bush’s fool ass in office. There has been a lot of public discord about the fact that France is not supporting us when "We saved their asses in WW 2!" First of all we were dragged kicking and screaming into World War II, and if we hadn’t been attacked there’s no telling if and when we would have joined in to "save their asses". Does this mean that France and England and really all of Western Europe should eternally subjugate themselves to America? No. They should be grateful, and be our allies, but a country must always vote their conscience. If it seems to them that America is pushing for war because it is the only way Bushes know how to stimulate the economy and divert people’s attention form the fact that they have no jobs and no money, then Europe must do what they feel they need to do to avert war. Now if they could only get America to not be so one-sided in it’s support for Israel, we’d really be getting somewhere in the war on terror. There is only one problem with all of this anti-war sentiment: what if they’re wrong? What if we are right? What if Iraq is building weapons of mass destruction, and war is the only way to safeguard ourselves? What if he is pulling the wool over the eyes of the international community? In a way that would be nice, because it would prove that America was the only country in the world really up to speed on what people are doing. But it could also be terrible because the USA is one of the top targets of terrorism. If the rest of the world is wrong, they are not the ones who will pay for their mistake, we are. If Iraq successfully hides weapons, those weapons will not be unleashed on France, or Germany, or China or Russia. They will be headed straight here to where we live. We have the most at stake in this argument, which is why we should have the most say. But if we are perceived as unjustly attacking Iraq, that could go just as badly as moving the US up the list past Israel as the #1 enemy of the Arab world. So it seems we may be damned if we do, and damned if we don’t. But I still have this nagging feeling that we may be worse off if we do than if we don’t. A friend of mine said that she is sure that if we do not attack Iraq, terrorism will drop off considerably. But if we do, terrorism will rise a lot. Many of the people of the countries who claim to support us do not. The best example of this is Turkey, whose Prime Minister pledged their support, but whose Parliament voted down allowing US troops to fight from Turkey. In northern Iraq there is the threat of there being a four front war between the Iraqis, the Kurds, Turks, and the Americans. That is a disaster waiting to happen. The war is not exactly popular in Britain either. Last week 122 members of Tony Blair’s own party called the case for war unproved, 199 British lawmakers in total revolted against Blair. The problem is that Bush is blindly pushing for the advancement and safety of the USA at the expense of the rest of the world. The US is sucking up the resources of the planet more than any other single country, (and more than most other regions in fact), while giving nothing back. That is why people expect so much from us, because we have so much. The American president should put our interests first and foremost, but not at the expense of the rest of the world. We cannot screw over the rest of the world and expect to stay safe here at home. We do not live in a snowglobe. I would really like to be able to travel abroad some day, but at this rate there won’t be anywhere safe in the world to go, except for Canada, and that barely counts as being a foreign country. Bush does not know how to play well with others, and his attitude and policy has made him and consequently America intensely hated in the Arab world, far more than ever before. American reporters who have talked to Iraqis on the street have said that they don’t hate America, they hate Bush. And we end up getting hit by another terrorist attack because of Dubya pissing the world off, I’m going to hate him as well.

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About Me

Exit Eleven refers to the Exit off of the NJ Turnpike of which I have lived most of my life (I have lived off of Exits 10 and 9 for a few years) but most of my life I've lived off of Exit 11. It's a Jersey thing, some people are proud of and some people despise it, but we all know what exit we live off of. It is sort of ingrained in our DNA. I happen to be proud of it, and my state. That's why I named my Blog after it.

Exit 11 is mostly reader driven, meaning I write about what people around me want to read about at the time, or what is going on in my life at the time. Other times I just write about whatever is going on socially. Hopefully it's funny, but it's always relevant. Mostly.

I'm just a normal guy who has an opinion about absolutely everything under the sun. I am a combination Writer/Psychologist, which gives me a unique perspective on life, the universe, and everything. My two favorite subjects are Love and Race, but I cover everything eventually.